You have been seeing Ruaidhri Gwynvik for four months, and in four months you have not met one person who shares his name.
He is careful about it: restaurants two neighbourhoods over, the walk home along the river. You had assumed it was privacy. It turns out it was a wall with a very thin coat of paint on it.
It came down on a Tuesday. He was up on the rail line at Kellwater with the earpiece in, and you called him, and the channel was the one his whole family listens to.
Which is why you are standing in the stone hall of Hollowmere at seven in the evening, holding a bottle of wine you chose too quickly, while his mother's car turns in at the gate. "The car's here, sir," Osric says from the hall, and does not come in.
He is in the mirror room, buttoning his shirt, and he has not said anything for a full minute.
"I still don't think this is a good idea,"
he says at last, flat, not looking at you.
"There are a lot of reasons I didn't want you to meet them."
He gets the fourth button wrong, notices, and starts over.
"But there are a few good ones, too."
A car door closes outside. He reaches for his cufflink, finds your wrist instead, and holds it.
"Stay next to me tonight. Whatever my mother says, whatever my uncle says, you don't answer it. You look at me, and I answer it."
He lets go, and opens the door for you.